US scientists create bacteria-eating virus

[Sufi Marmot]

Yahoo link.

US researchers said they have created an artificial bacteria-eating virus -- in just 14 days and from synthetic genes.

I think this article is a bit misleading...If I understand this correctly, they simply reconstructed from scratch the entire genome of a bacteriophage by the polymerase chain reaction, stitched it together, packaged it somehow, and showed that it was biologically active. Color me underwhelmed...If you copy out Hamlet in its entirety in longhand, that doesn't make you Shakespeare.

On the other hand, this has disconcerting implications for less benign viruses...

I'm not sure this work has been published yet as I don't see it on Pubmed, and the Yahoo article didn't mention a specific journal.

-SM

[Bozola]

1. true....but....

if your reverse engineered a coding language complete with a compiler, the first program, though simple (as in the case of a bacteriophage) is pretty impressive.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. I think a virus eating bacteria would be more useful.

We can control bacteria, but viruses don't respond to anti-biotics.

Also, we have good bacteria in our bodies that are imperative to our well-being. i.e. bacteria in our stomach aids in digestion. Do away with them and your entire system goes out of whack.

[cavebat2000]

4. LoL

Hahaha.... thats funny. Cause I read a study done in the 50's that talked about bacteria eating viruses.

[trotsky]

3. Also has breathtaking possibilities.

Program a virus to go in and target someone's cancer cells. Or change the DNA of a malfunctioning pancreas.

As with virtually every scientific discovery, it could be used to help or to harm.

[Philosophy]

5. It's significant because it is the first synthetic life

It's the first time a living organism has been created purely by chemistry, with no living ancestors.

[LibLabUK]

7. Er...

Except viruses aren't living organisms. :)

[NNadir]

9. Actually it's not.

Leaving aside whether a virus is "life" or not, this is not the first time life has been generated from non living matter through chemistry. The first time that happened was under the premordial conditions under which life arose.

This is the first time that "life" has been synthesized in a laboratory.

[Sufi Marmot]

6. Ok, maybe I should be partially whelmed...

I guess I'm just not surprised that this is possible to do with a very simple and well characterized phage with a tiny (less than 5500 base pairs) genome.

I'd be curious to know exactly how they did the "compiling", that is, once they had the complete DNA sequence, how did they package it into biologically active virions...

-SM

[LibLabUK]

8. Maybe....

One possible way would be to insert the DNA sequence into a bacteria, and let the bacteria express the genes for the protein coat.

It would be using the same method that viruses use to propagate.

[Sufi Marmot]

10. More detailed article from Boston Globe...

Boston Globe article.

The research will supposedly be published in PNAS soon.


-SM

[treepig]

11. in reality, this work is just a marginally incremental advance

of work that's been underway for 25 years now. the basic concept of using synthetic oligonucleotides for gene assembly was reported in 1980:


Science. 1980 209(4463):1401-5.
Chemical DNA synthesis and recombinant DNA studies.

Chemically synthesized DNA has been used in many recombinant DNA studies. These uses have included the total synthesis and cloning of functional genes, the cloning and expression of natural genes, and editing of changing genes by directed mutation.


this technology was applied to a specific gene two years later:

J Biol Chem. 1982 257(16):9226-9.
An alternate method for synthesis of double-stranded DNA segments.

Recent progress in the chemical synthesis of DNA has now made it possible to rapidly synthesize single-stranded DNAs over 40 bases in length. We have taken advantage of these longer DNAs in assembling and cloning a 132-base pair gene segment coding for amino acids 126 through the stop codon of human leukocyte interferon alpha 2. . . . We describe in detail this methodology for the biochemical assembly of long gene segments from synthetic oligodeoxyribonucleotides.


by incorporation of PCR into the protocols, much longer gene sequences were being made eight years ago:

Gene. 1995 164(1):49-53.
Single-step assembly of a gene and entire plasmid from large numbers of oligodeoxyribonucleotides.

Here, we describe assembly PCR as a method for the synthesis of long DNA sequences from large numbers of oligodeoxyribonucleotides (oligos). The method, which is derived from DNA shuffling , does not rely on DNA ligase but instead relies on DNA polymerase to build increasingly longer DNA fragments during the assembly process. A 1.1-kb fragment containing the TEM-1 beta-lactamase-encoding gene (bla) was assembled in a single reaction from a total of 56 oligos, each 40 nucleotides (nt) in length. . . We tested the range of assembly PCR by synthesizing, in a single reaction vessel containing 134 oligos, a high-molecular-mass multimeric form of a 2.7-kb plasmid containing the bla gene, the alpha-fragment of the lacZ gene and the pUC origin of replication. Digestion with a unique restriction enzyme, followed by ligation and transformation in Escherichia coli, yielded the correct plasmid. Assembly PCR is well suited for several in vitro mutagenesis strategies.


and now, from the boston globe article in post #10 - the statement "A team of scientists announced yesterday it has found a fast and accurate way to build genes from scratch, a technique that could give scientists the practical tools to create life in a lab" is just flat out a lie.

in reality, venter and associates did not find a fast and accurate way to build genes from scratch, in fact eight years ago a plasmid almost as large had been made by similar methodology (see the "gene" paper listed above) - they merely applied well-established techniques to a new DNA sequence (the bacteriophage). venter is a shameless self-promoter, but still, the globe should know better than publish such a misleading article.

[Sufi Marmot]

12. Good points...

And I'm not sure how Venter's work is so much different than the poliovirus reconstruction, except for the time it took to complete the synthesis. I'll check out the PNAS article when it comes out...

venter is a shameless self-promoter No argument from me on that point...


-SM